This invention relates to a method for automatically winding an annular ferromagnetic body for a rotating electric machine, having axially extending slots opening radially inwardly. Coils are wound each by means of a wire delivering member which may be shifted axially through the bore of said body from one side thereof to the other, and of at least one wire receiving member, by repeated transfer of the winding wire between said wire delivering member and said wire receiving member, axially passing said wire through the bore of said body and inserting of said wire into a slot and forming of a turn of each coil end by radial outward displacement of one of said members, relative rotation between this member and said body and radial inward displacement of said member.
A method of this kind is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 3,220,094. The winding wire is fed and inserted into the slots by means of wire delivering members oriented transversally to the axis of the bore of said body and which may be axially displaced through the bore. Each wire section inserted into a slot is subsequently seized by a hook axially outside said body, and the wire is pulled radially outwardly by said hook and laid out onto axially projecting supporting members of insulating material. Said wire delivering members positioned transversally to the axis of the bore of said body are limiting the method to winding of ferromagnetic bodies having wide bores, and the simple hook-shaped wire receiving members do not allow optimal layout of the wire in the coil ends because the wire section running in an inclined direction from the wire delivering member to the wire receiving member risks to come into conflict with the axially extending supporting members. In order to keep the wire free from these supporting members it is necessary to provide for substantial axial extension of the wire delivering member and substantial radial extension of the wire receiving member from the ferromagnetic body. Wire receiving hooks have to be provided at each side of the body.
The French Pat. No. 1,134,892 discloses a system wherein wire delivering members are fixed on toothed racks radially displaceable in a carrier adapted to be axially shifted through the bore of the ferromagnetic body. Said wire delivering members may be radially displaced outside each face of the ferromagnetic body in order to lay out the wire over axially projecting supporting hooks and for thereby forming the coil ends. However, such a mechanism is so complicated and bulky that it may only be used in connection with large dimensions of the bore of the ferromagnetic body, and the liberty in optimally laying out the wire in the coil ends are limited.